Give me road rage - Lundi 30.10.06

Lundi 30.10.06 Give me road rage & Reggae any day

Breakfast is not included in the price of our lodgings but there’s a little open-air, corner café to whet our waking appetite.

We want to visit some of Guadeloupe’s offshore islands which seem to offer a diversity of terrains and attractions:

Marie-Galante is the biggest of Guadeloupe’s islands. The draw here is the uncrowded, unspoilt beaches and the thoughts of sipping Guadeloupe’s best and strongest rum – a giddy 59% alcohol.

Two inhabited islands form Les Saintes. There are terrific beaches and attractive architecture to be explored on Terre-de-Haut while its arid, rockier sibling, Terre-de-Bas holds more rugged hiking circuits ensuring escapism from the crowds.

In the distance is the sparsely populated La Désirade and its tiny unpopulated distant cousin, La Petite Terre. If you want isolation these are the islands to visit. La Désirade - “the desired one”, appeared an oasis to sailors but contrary to its name it was used as a dumping ground for undesirables by the French colonizers and it served as a leper colony up until the 1950’s. Nowadays it has cast off this past and is now renowned for its pretty beaches where visitors can feel like castaways not banished pariahs. La Petite Terre is made up of two small islands. One, Terre-de-Bas, can be reached only by wading in off the boat. This was no leper colony but nowadays it is home to many Antillean iguanas.

The aptly named Iguana Sun tour company does two weekly day-trips to this tiny Terre-de-Bas with a combined visit to La Désirade. This is the tour I fancy but unfortunately it doesn’t run on the days we’re here and the other tours don’t reel us in. Nicola and David are water-babies and so they head off to book scuba-diving for the following day. I contemplate going off on my own island cruise but the boats haven’t been too kind to me lately and I’m not sure about going off liom féin.

We’re not sucked in by the shimmering sea of Sainte-Anne this morning. There’ll be plenty of time to wile away by the sea. Instead we take the local bus to Point-à-Pitre (PÀP) from where we’ll explore the Guadeloupe’s eastern ‘wing’ Grand-Terre. (It’s a wing because Guadeloupe’s outline resembles a butterfly).

The western wing, Basse-Terre, is not at all a ‘low land’ as its name indicates. Its central core is dominated by mountain ranges, including La Soufrière – the highest peak in the Lesser Antilles. The mountains surround the island’s lush rainforest and descend to meet the volcanic, black-sand strands and charming fishing villages. More than 300km of pathways make way for easy access to this paradise, though since our time is limited and it seems similar to Dominica we decide to explore the other, eastern, side of Guadeloupe.

By contrast Grand-Terre is flat, and predominately rural. It is for the most part a chalk plateau with sugar cane fields, swamps, marshes and mangroves. It is trimmed by beaches and studded with resort towns such as our own stunning Sainte-Anne, the magnificent Club Med monopolisation of Le Gosier and the secluded but swanky Saint-François. The air here is drier and for me it becomes the holiday destination I desire after the humid hilliness of Martinique.

The 40 minute, €2 bus journey from Sainte-Anne to the depot at PÀP is a memorable one; not only due to the blaring bongo music, novelty ‘beep-beeps’, colourful characters and individual interiors of each bus but also the short walk from our initial drop-off to our connecting bus. We encounter strange glances and advances along the way.

PÀP is a dive. I instantly dislike it. I did initially feel the same way about FDF but PÀP doesn’t seem as genuinely lived-in as FDF. It seems more deliberately depressed and rundown. It’s more cramped, crumbly and creepy - not as open, and I don’t find much ancient appeal, except perhaps for the leafy bridge we pass under while avoiding the taxi men who try to doorstep us. Perhaps I’m being too vigilant but we ask some decent looking souls for directions and their words of wisdom and anxious looks seem to confirm my closed, yet cautious, approach to this city. There is some familiarity however - in the form of the IUFM. David lets out a sigh of relief that he’s assigned to the humble Martinique equivalent and not it’s crumbling PÀP counterpart.

We’re directed to a second bus depot, located in a gritty, gravely yard between two council estates. There are a handful of buses around but only one driver can be seen. Before we even get close enough to talk to him we’re each witnessed some of the cities brassy characters and their various vulgarities. A guy slinks around the back of the bus and asks me if I’d like to, “faire l’amour.” Of course you get this everywhere but I’m in no mood to be perved over so I give him the one-fingered salute and off with me. We’re in a huddle deciding where to go when this weirdo, who looks like a black Golum from Lord of the Rings, tries to get our attention. Golum cycles around us muttering away with a half chewed fag hanging from his mouth and a chewed up face to match. The funny thing is that this he is actually a she though Nicola is convinced otherwise despite the ruffled green string top, the bunched braids and the girly bicycle with a basket and bell to boot. David spies a fully naked figure with a small towel and an even smaller tool. Guadeloupe is a natural habitat for the mongoose and the racoon but this is a different sort of wild life altogether. I’ve rechristened these Guadeloupe residents as Guadeloopers. Another dude tries to muscle in on our conversation. At least we can understand him. He asks us if we want to take his car for our travels but we decline. The bus driver intervenes and offers to take us down the road to where we can get the bus to Port-Louis. He says it will cost €1.50 for the ride – two minutes down the road between the council blocks, but once he drops us off he waves away our payment and sends us on our way. We hop on our next bus and half an hour later we’re pumping out more reggae sounds, shaking our hair loose in the cool breeze and zipping along the wide, flat roads of Guadeloupe’s Grand-Terre past random goats and roaming cows on the sugar cane circuit.

If anyone saw us three they’d think we’d fallen out as we’re stretched out on separate seats, only occasionally passing comments or sweets. At one point I decide to close my window because I’m almost blown away by the wild wind, but even though it’s closed I swear that I can feel something tickling the back of my neck. One moment it’s ticklish and the next it’s a soft, warm breeze. I don’t want to stare out the person behind me, on the nearly packed bus, but I get a glance of a young chap wearing a white hoodie and baseball cap. I’m certain he purposely tickled my neck either to hit on me or as a hint to reopen the window so I push back the pane again and let him have it.

There are a few towns and attractions in Grand-Terre which have struck our attention:

Port-Louis is our first stop-off. It’s a small fishing hamlet. We levitate towards the long, golden strand of Plage du Souffleur. You can see the northern part of Basse-Terre with its lofty peaks and towering trees across the bay.

The lads here seem to favour bicycles instead of whiney mopeds but rather than making the locality more tranquil it makes it easier for another local loo-la to approach us. The loo-la in question cycles by us with a spoon and half a grapefruit in one hand – that’s fast food alright. His name is Scorpio. He tries to spark up conversation with David who is taking a dip. I’m putting sun-cream on Nic’s back. He approaches, putting his index finger to his mouth as a silent request to rub the cream in. I tell him it’s not normal hoping that he’ll sulk off. However he stays and asks us our names. I tell him I’m Fukie and Nic is Gween (that’s supposedly Créyol for lesbian). He actually seems intrigued but he soon leaves us to enjoy ourselves when he doesn’t get any action.

The sand is soft and we’re shaded by the looming coconut trees. The sea may be rocky in parts but it’s so clear you can see the fish, crabs and plants below. The creatures seem undisturbed in our presence. I follow two opaque fish for a while before I start to feel the hunger. Everyone else is also thinking of their tummies so we wander around the town in search of sustenance. The town is eerily quiet. There’s a lone house with dozens of pigeons outside it. Cars are parked in the middle of the road. Ornate lampposts are to be seen everywhere and odd, old couples sway in their rocking chairs on the porches of their multi-coloured, tin-roofed shacks. There are also many colonial houses dotted around the town. There seems to be no real eateries but we take our chances with the Créole Shack which is serving up Râgout de Boeuf, Boeuf Haché and more bony, bonny fish cooked court-bouillon style. They seem to have every flavour of ice-cream under the Caribbean sun but we pass and settle our €27 bill.

We wait for the bus and take the hour long, €2.70 ride back to PÀP where we hop on another in the direction of Saint-François. The local bus is the best way to see the countryside and to tour on the cheap like a local. En route to Saint-François we pass through Morne-à-l’Eau with its many black-and-white-tiled tombs on the hill at the entrance to the town. It’s not as awe-inspiring as what I’d expected but the checked patterns are intriguing none-the-less. And with this being the eve of Toussaint many souls are out cleaning the graves of family and friends in preparation for tomorrow’s soul searching spectacle when thousands of candles and bouquets will be placed in cemeteries around France in remembrance of lost loved-ones.

Our bus also stops at Le Moule, Guadeloupe’s original capital. There’s really nothing much to see here except beaches though there is a deliciously, distinct smell of grilled fish wafting through the night air. Our night-time tour shows us the late-night vendors and moon-light bathers around the bay. That may be the highlight of Le Moule but there’s plenty of entertainment on the bus as a passenger starts to preach about how unfair his life is; his ranting starts to drown out the monotonous mumbo-jumbo music. So much so that the driver eventually turns down the radio to listen to his woes, only to blast the beats back up a minute later. The bus may be noisy but it’s animated. Give me an animated, bumpy bus ride over an agitated, boisterous boat any day.

By the time we hit Saint-François its pitch black and we’re the only passengers on board. The bus driver leaves us on the outskirts of town but somehow we find ourselves wandering from the Place du Marché in the town centre to the marina’s posh people-watching hang-out. We flip-flop down the dimly lit, narrow side streets towards the high-masted craft centre. (I reckon we’re all even-Stevens with that flippin’ flipper game by the time we hit the marina). Since its night-time we don’t see the grandeur of the posh boutiques and crystal clad clientele but there are still plenty of well-heeled watering-holes and sophisticated restaurants to explore, and ignore.

We settle on a place to eat. It’s advertised as a posh pizza hut but its more like puppy paradise with dozens of pooches lazing under their owner’s own pampered pieds. Some hot dogs saunter around the tables in the hope of procuring pizza crusts. I’m the only one having pizza. It’s a Hawaiian with pineapple and cheese though it tastes fishy. Nic is tucking into a fancy salad with some suspicious looking meaty slivers while David gets mediocre muscles. Nicola is not impressed to find banana in her Dame Blanche but I must say that the Tarte Tatin saved the day for me. It’s a caramelised apple tart with creamy vanilla ice-cream and crème anglaise and it makes up for all the cups of tea that I’ve had to go without over the past three days.

We move on to the stylish @robase bar for drinks with Karla, Alex, Angela and the two German, Hasselhoff-devotees, Andy and Martin. Martin also expresses his love for Michael Jackson but stresses that it’s the music not the man he’s in to. Mandy and Martina are lost in their love for Wacko Jacko and The Hoff but I’m lost in the cocktail list. Alex gets an exciting looking Gin Fizz and Angela manages to get some too even though she’s sucking on her Porn Star Pina Colada...

There’s more woe regarding rental cars as the girls tell us they burst a tire and have to fork out for a new one. It’s too late to get a bus home so we try to contact the local taxi service but it’s a bogus number. David, Nic and I throw caution to the wind and decide to look for one along the main road; Saint-François is a hip, hopping town, is it not? So there should be no trouble getting a taxi at 23,30… Right? Wrong. We try to flag down every vehicle that comes our way but they don’t stop. Thankfully Karla comes to our rescue and drops us to Sainte-Anne. We’re indebted, and inebriated, and go head over heels into the sea to celebrate our reunion with our beach bum chums. An hour later we’re washed up on the shore, with the man-in-the-moon beaming down on us and the sobering affects of the saltwater taking its course. We soon retreat from the sandy shore, each bringing a bit of the beach to the bedroom door, and leaving a trail for the cleaner to nail us with the next morning.